![]() It’s a mechanic that encapsulates the series’ spirit of anarchic play – so much so that, in writing this piece, I’ve had to check and double check that it definitely didn’t appear in Watch Dogs 1. When you climb into a car, the game’s roaming pointer changes priorities – eschewing pedestrians in favour of pointing out trucks that might make meaty obstructions for your pursuers, or unwitting police patrols you might send on white knuckle drives down the beach and out into the beautiful bay. There’s an illicit glee to firing a sports car through the front window of a showroom and off down to the street to cause so much chaos at close hand and yet not be held to account. It all goes down at hilariously high speeds, wheels screaming in such a way as to turn the heads of any NPCs in earshot. Though I’ve never quite managed it, I’m now driven by a belief it’s possible to pull off a perfect parallel park by remote control.Ĭalled it: Check out our Watch Dogs 2 review While Watch Dogs 1 restricted vehicular fiddling to raising forklifts or spinning the dials of a helicopter, the sequel enables full directional hacking of anything with a motor – left, right, forwards, back, or any combination thereof. While Watch Dogs 2 clings at all times to a kernel of reality, there’s more than a little of Reflections’ flights of fancy in its own vehicle hacking. Reflections’ Driver: San Francisco had a ludicrous premise in which, and this still feels absurd to write, series protagonist Tanner dreamt the events of the game in a coma – lending him the impossible ability to float up, out of his car and body, and into those of other drivers on the road. It’s not a name plucked from the air, but a wonderfully upfront nod to Driver studio Ubisoft Reflections – who expertly overhauled Watch Dogs’ driving model for the sequel, and built their own lower-res version of San Fran just five years earlier. Driving missions are accessed through an Uber-like app called Driver: San Francisco. ![]() Let’s start, as every Watch Dogs 2 mission does, with that phone. This is the most playful and free Ubi has been since Grow Home The sins of the father are not those of the child. It wasn’t just that buyers were wary of Watch Dogs 2 – they didn’t even want to hear about it. In the months before release, we’d noted alarmingly low reader traffic on previews. ![]() Watch Dogs 2 sold a fraction of the copies its predecessor did at launch, and it didn’t come as a total surprise. But, to some degree, that promotional campaign was in vain. You’ll have seen that same line drawn all over Ubisoft’s promotional shots, zigzagging across those first images until they resembled geometric puzzles. It’s a roaming cursor that represents an invisible layer of interaction GTA doesn’t have, encouraging you to stick your finger in Ubisoft Montreal’s simulation and give it an experimental waggle. ![]() A thin white line, extruding from the phone perpetually in your hand, that hops between potential hacking targets – traffic lights, SUVs, manhole covers, voicemails – with an eagerness that borders on impatience. At a glance, there’s only a thin line that separates Watch Dogs 2 from GTA. ![]()
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![]() ![]() It was an interesting period for the two groups, and the colonial leaders even agreed to an exchange – they presented Powhatan with a young 13-year old boy, Thomas Savage, and Powhatan sent a young man named Namontack in return. There wasn’t any romantic relationship between Pocahontas and Smith, either. Historians have uncovered that if a Native American chief honored a man – the way Smith was honored by Powhatan – there wouldn’t be a threat to his life. Smith also wrote that Pocahontas warned him of a plot against his life. As an emissary, she brought food to the settlers and negotiated the release of Powhatan prisoners in 1608. Pocahontas saved Smith’s group time and time again. Pocahontas began visiting Jamestown along with Powhatan’s envoys, in an attempt to bridge some peace between the two starkly different cultures. Some historians even believe that Smith was never in any danger at all, and this was just a ceremony he went through. ![]() The reason Smith’s account is debated is that he wrote different versions of this first meeting. Pocahontas saved him by placing her head on his, preventing the attack. It’s seen in Smith’s account, too.Īpparently, when Smith first met Powhatan, his head was placed on two stones and a warrior was prepared to kill him. Before I dismiss her relationship with John Smith as a silly historical romanticization, I should mention that the misconception that Pocahontas saved his life isn’t recent at all. Pocahontas was just a nickname, meaning “playful”, thanks to her curious and inquisitive nature.īorn in approximately 1596, Amonute was Powhatan’s daughter, and he ruled more than 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes, in the area that would later become Jamestown, Virginia. Her real name is Amonute, and her more private name was Matoaka. There isn’t much evidence of Pocahontas rescuing the soldier at all.įirst off, Pocahontas is just a nickname.įirst off, Pocahontas is just a nickname. However, the idea that Pocahontas turned her back on her own people to single-handedly help ‘bridge’ two cultures is not historically true. ![]() Maybe because stories of star-crossed lovers are bound to fascinate humanity. This idea, that Pocahontas turned allies with the English, is one that captured the public’s imagination for centuries. Tales have been spun about her rescuing John Smith, an English adventurer, from certain execution. Her true history is very different, and much darker. ![]() We know Pocahontas to be a young woman who fell in love with a European settler and eventually dove off the cliffs of Virginia. That son would be named Thomas Rolfe, whose biological father may have actually been Sir Thomas Dale.Pocahontas seems to be immortalized thanks to the Disney rendition and to countless history books. She grew into a deep depression and had a second son out of wedlock. While captive in Jamestown, Pocahontas was raped by possibly more than one colonist - an act that was incomprehensible to Native Americans. Forced to leave her husband and small son, Pocahontas boarded an English ship, not knowing that colonists had murdered her husband Kocoum shortly after. Hoping to prevent future attacks by Native Americans, English Captain Samuel Argall made those rumors a reality and took the Chief's beloved daughter away with him after threatening violence against her village.īefore leaving, Argall offered a copper pot to the tribe and later claimed the two parties had made a trade. With tensions rising between the Powhatan and the English, rumors spread that Pocahontas was a prime target for kidnapping. Pocahontas was not traded to the English she was kidnapped and raped Additionally, children were forbidden to attend a werowance ceremony, so Pocahontas wouldn't have been present. ![]() ![]() ![]() Download, like, and comment on your favorite Sims, complete homes, and fully designed rooms. Develop your Sims’ skills and pursue new hobbies.Īdd New Experiences The all-new Gallery gives you the power to discover amazing community content to add to your game, or share your own creations with the world. Your choices shape every aspect of their lives from birth, to being a toddler, and into adulthood. Play with Life Control the rich and entertaining moments of your Sims’ lives from their relationships to their careers. Your Sims can visit new communities to expand their social circle, hangout with friends in parks, or find and collect fun new objects. You can even add a pool or basement!Įxplore Vibrant Worlds Travel between worlds, explore unique neighborhoods, and discover interesting venues. Tons of free content has been added to The Sims 4 since it launched. ![]() Construct the home of your dreams by designing its layout, choosing its furnishings, and altering the landscape. Give their lives purpose by selecting their traits and aspirations that give you control over their mind, body, and heart.īuild the Perfect Home Effortlessly build and design homes for your Sims using the new room-based Build Mode. Sculpt your Sims’ body shape using the powerful new Create A Sim tool then choose their hairstyles, walk-styles, and fashions. Be powerful and free, have fun, and play with life!Ĭreate Unique Sims Create a variety of unique Sims with distinct appearances, big personalities, and all-new emotions. Explore beautiful worlds with unique environments and travel to neighborhoods where you can visit venues and meet other interesting Sims. ![]() In this scenario, please reach out to the retail location you purchased the game. Develop your Sims’ relationships, pursue new careers, and shape the rich and entertaining moments of their lives. If you start your Epic Games launcher and see that titles that were. Effortlessly build your Sims the perfect homes with the all-new room-based Build Mode, choosing your favorite designs and décor. Choose their fashions, select their hairstyles, and give them life aspirations. Express your creativity as you customize your Sims’ distinct appearances and unique personalities. Show unpublished installers Write a new installerĮnjoy the power to create and control people in a virtual world where there are no rules. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The one downside to this is that you can see less of what's in front of you compared to other camera angles. This camera angle also has the added benefit of being angled downward, making nollie tricks much easier to pull off (You have slightly more time to effectively swipe the back foot before the board becomes parallel with your view, making flip tricks almost impossible.). On my iPhone 5, I find that using the 5th, most zoomed in camera angle gives me more board surface area, resulting in more accurate swipes.
![]() ![]() These will change how we use devices for years to come. ![]() The more significant changes, however, aren’t yet here - like the plan to add Driver’s Licenses to Wallet and the plan to shift to passwordless authentication systems. Others are Apple’s attempt to catch up with competitors, like the Google Lens-like “Live Text” update for taking action on things snapped in your photos. Many, however, were iterative updates - like a better version Apple Maps, for example, or Siri support for third-party devices. There were, of course, hundreds of updates announced this week, like Spatial audio, Focus modes, AirPods updates, iPadOS improvements (widgets! multi-tasking), Health updates, iCloud+ with Private Relay, watchOS improvements, Spotlight’s upgrade, macOS 12 Monterey (with Continuity with Universal Control), HomePod updates, StoreKit 2, Screen Time APIs, ShazamKit, App Clips improvements, Photos improvements and others. Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2021 keynote Similarly, FaceTime’s support for Android and scheduled calls - a clear case of Zoom envy - feels like a case of playing catch-up on Apple’s part. And that may have inspired the changes, to be sure. There was a hint of serving the locked-down COVID-19 pandemic crowd with this update, as Apple talks about making people feel as if they’re “in the same room” - a nod to those many months where that was not possible. Instead, it’s introducing new APIs that let users listen to music, stream video or screen share with friends, in a way that feels organic to FaceTime. But Apple isn’t tacking on some co-viewing system here. If you were co-watching Hulu with friends during the pandemic, you get the idea. With SharePlay, developers can bring their apps into what Apple is calling “Group Activities” - or shared experiences that take place right inside FaceTime. This update is unexpected and interesting, despite missing what would have been an ideal launch window: mid-pandemic back in 2020. ![]() The impacts of this update will be seen in the months and years ahead, as developers adopt the new tools for things like AR shopping, games and other AR experiences - including ones we may not have seen yet, but are enabled by more accessible AR technology tools and frameworks. Before, this could take hours and cost thousands of dollars - now, developers with just an iPhone and Mac can participate. What’s unclear, however, is why Apple is seemingly trying to solve the App Review issues using forms - to report fraud (and now, to appeal rulings, too) when it’s becoming apparent that Apple needs a more systematic way of keeping tabs on the app ecosystem beyond the initial review process.Īpple’s RealityKit 2 allows developers to create 3D models for AR using iPhone photosĮxplains Apple this will address one of the most difficult parts of making great AR apps, which was the process of creating 3D models. Even if it’s a small percentage of the App Store, scam apps with fake ratings not only can cheat users out of millions of dollars, they reduce consumer trust in the App Store and Apple itself, which has longer-term consequences for the ecosystem health. ![]() It noted how the App Store stopped over $1.5 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2020, for example. The new guidelines also allow developers to report spam directly to Apple, instead of, you know, relying on tweets and press.Īpple has historically downplayed the scam problem. The changes give Apple permission to crack down on scammers by removing offenders from its Developer Program. If only Apple had announced the pricing!Īpple to introduce A/B testing and in-app events to the App Storeīeyond the App Store product itself, Apple overhauled its App Store policies to address the growing problem of scam apps. While Xcode Cloud may not replace solutions designed for larger teams with more diverse needs, it’s poised to make app development easier - and deliver a new revenue stream to Apple. Beyond the immediate improvements to the development process (which developers are incredibly excited about based on #WWDC21 tweets) Xcode Cloud represents a big step by Apple further into the cloud services space, where Amazon (AWS), Google and Microsoft have dominated. Apple says the service, birthed out of its 2018 Buddybuild acquisition, will help to speed up the pace of development by combining cloud-based tools for building apps along with tools to run automated tests in parallel, deliver apps to testers via TestFlight and view tester feedback through the web-based App Store Connect dashboard. Xcode CloudĪpple’s development IDE, Xcode 13, now includes Xcode Cloud, a built-in continuous integration and delivery service hosted on Apple’s cloud infrastructure. But after a few days of processing everything new, here’s what’s jumping out as the bigger takeaways and updates. ![]() |
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